Welcome, anyone who wants to join us (Bookstooge, Murder by Death, and Reflections) as we read the first book in Pratchett's Death series. For some of us, this is our first time so we do ask no spoilers.

We're starting this weekend; can't wait to meet Death!

Woot!

Thanks for spearheading DoA!

Found it! Thanks DoA!

I'm up to, I think, page 111 and after a rough start I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I almost put it down for good after the first page, I'll admit. The writing is sublime, my very favorite kind of dry, British humour, but I dislike SF so as soon as the part about the disc on the elephants on the turtle at the head of the waterfall in space started up I thought "crap". Then he started talking about the plants that grow before you plant them and I said to DH, "I'm not gonna like this."

But once I got past that stuff, I really started enjoying it. I had another moment when Death and Mort are in the alley-way and he reaches into the barrel of water and... it took a lot not to put the book down at that point too.

I like Mort though, and I really like Death when he's not speaking to Mort; the scenes where he's thinking to himself or talking to Albert are truly entertaining and just the narration makes me laugh out loud.

By the way, does anyone think I could get away with calling this a Science Fiction? I need one for a challenge...

OH! and did anyone else's copy of the book start on page 11?!? Physically it was page 3 put it was numbered "11".

Reply to post #6 (show post):
I'm on page 60 and will be picking this back up a bit later tonight.

MbD, I hadn't thought of the Sci-Fi aspect. I've never really placed his books in that genre but I guess they do have elements of it. To me though, they're basically in the fantasy genre. I've got the feeling through that Pratchett kinda uses elements from lots of places though.

Mort is quite good and I do love Death. He's...not what you expect and he's not exactly cuddly but he's quite fun to read.

Your right, the writing is sublime. I've chuckled quite often at his unique ways of describing things. The scene with Mort's father and uncle in the field was priceless and the descriptions of Ankh-Morkpork...I felt claustrophobic and nauseated just reading the words.

That's really weird about your copy. Mine was titled page 1.

Some of my favorite quotes so far:

Of Mort

It was also acutely embarrassing to Mort’s family that the youngest son was not at all serious and had about the same talent for horticulture that you would find in a dead starfish. It wasn’t that he was unhelpful, but he had the kind of vague, cheerful helpfulness that serious men soon learn to dread.

Of Ankh-Morpork

This part of Ankh-Morpork was known as The Shades, an inner-city area sorely in need either of governmental help or, for preference, a flamethrower. It couldn’t be called squalid because that would be stretching the word to breaking point. It was beyond squalor and out the other side, where by a sort of Einsteinian reversal it achieved a magnificent horribleness that it wore like an architectural award. 

Of the River Ankh

And so Mort came at last to the river Ankh, greatest of rivers. Even before it entered the city, it was slow and heavy with the silt of the plains, and by the time it got to The Shades even an agnostic could have walked across it. It was hard to drown in the Ankh, but easy to suffocate.

I'm at 20% and enjoying but not loving the book. Clever humor and great writing, it's definitely fun to read but so far it's not an I-can't-put-it-down book for me.

Reply to post #10 (show post):
I want to know what happens but I agree, it's not completely holding my interest.

It's an entertaining book, and the sections about Mort and the princess briefly got me more invested in the story, but at 44% I'm still just mildly interested. I recently read the first 3 books in the Wizard of Oz series and it was much the same--they're interesting, funny books but . . .

My favorite books make me care more about their characters, but I don't think that's Pratchett's goal here. Still, I'm glad to finally be reading something from Disc World series and while I'm not over the top with enthusiasm I am enjoying it. And I have 56% to go so who knows!? Maybe something will hook me before the end.

Assuming nothing does, this is the kind of book that I don't usually write reviews for--I generally only review books I really love. Books I merely like don't excite me enough to motivate me to take the time to write about them, though I know other people review differently. It's perfect to just be chatting about it here.

I'm up to page 250 (240 if you take into account the weird page numbering). I find the middle to be not quite as strong as the beginning, but I'm still enjoying it. Pratchett has a way of writing and the whole plays out like a movie in my head as I read.

I'm having a hard time caring about the dynamic between Mort and the princess, and I'm not sure why that is. I like him, I like her but together? meh. The scene where Mort and Ysabell finally talk was probably my favorite of last night's reading.

Obviously we shouldn't get married, if only for the sake of the children.

Still, as much as I'm enjoying the read (now) I can't say I love it - I'm not going to be in a rush to read the rest of them, I don't think. It's odd when that happens isn't it? I'm enjoying it and I think the writing is brilliant, but it hasn't hooked me. I'm not addicted.

Reply to post #14 (show post):
Bummer. :P

I think for me the clever wit of Mort is primary and somehow overshadows the characters so I don't care about them much, and while I'm enjoying the book like MbD I won't be rushing to read the others. Sometimes Jasper Fforde's books can have that tendency, almost too smartly funny, but usually he manages to do enough of something to engage my emotions. Especially his Thursday Next series.

I found myself comparing this to Jasper Fforde's books as well. When I finished the first book I wanted to own all the Thursday Next books and promptly went out and found used copies of the hardbacks.

In Mort, I find the humour sometimes even funnier than the Thursday Next books, but still I don't feel that need to rush out and read more of them. Although I do like Death himself more than I liked Mort; I don't feel like I got to know Mort all that well overall. Now that I know my library has quite a selection of Pratchett's books, I could see myself reading another Death book at some point when my TBR pile isn't quite so precarious.

I have all the Thursday Next books too--actually I have all of Fforde's books, I think, but I really, REALLY love the Thursday Next series. My library has the whole series as CD books so I have a plan to listen to them all at some point in the hopefully not to distant future. (I've read them all the traditional way of course.)